


Brute

by orphan_account



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And a little bit of, Denial, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Thor (2011), a little touch of, amora ships it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 00:19:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Loki has tried to do this many times in the past few months. After a year of worrying his hands together over it, he finally decided to share with Thor exactly how he feels. He is young and has not thought of all the bad things that could come of it. He thinks it unfathomable his older brother would look upon him any differently. In fact, would likely sing in joy and agreement.So, Loki goes to Thor’s door. He knocks.And when he steps inside, nerves and excitement keeping him impatient, he grins, because it is finally going to happen. Thor will finally know.





	Brute

**Author's Note:**

> I literally took a break from writing to write?? And then this happened.

Loki spies Thor landing on his chamber balcony after a full afternoon of zipping around in the sky, dodging clouds, bringing rain and wind. Loki’s tracked his brother often these past days, for ever since he gifted his brother fair Mjolnir last week on his thousandth name day, Thor has been scarcely apart from her or the sky.  
  
His cheek still burns with the memory of Thor’s lips against it. A kiss, stolen in joy. Enjoyment, on Loki’s part, stolen in private. Thor had jostled him with an arm about his shoulders, for a lovely moment pressing them side to chest that Loki still blushes to think of it.  
  
Now, he retreats inside. He will go to his brother. He will tell Thor just how happy he makes him feel.  
  
Loki has tried to do this many times in the past few months. After a year of worrying his hands together over it, he finally decided to share with Thor exactly how he feels. He is young and has not thought of all the bad things that could come of it. He thinks it unfathomable his older brother would look upon him any differently. In fact, would likely sing in joy and agreement.  
  
So, Loki goes to Thor’s door. He knocks.  
  
And when he steps inside, nerves and excitement keeping him impatient, he grins, because it is finally going to happen. Thor will finally know.  
  
And it is Amora there, naked and reclining on Thor’s massive pile of furs. Her bosom shakes as she regards him, sitting up.  
  
“Yes, Prince?” she chimes.  
  
Loki swallows thickly. Does it again and again.  
  
He’d forgotten about the betrothal.  
  
Then he registers perhaps too late how he can hear the muffled sound of the baths going in the next room. Thor is bathing. After…after.  
  
His smile falls and Amora’s spreads.  
  
“Care to join us, Prince?” she coos, knowing him too well in that moment.  
  
“Tell my brother I only wished to demand he stop soaking the fields. He is making a mess of things down there and will flood this season’s yields.”  
  
Then Loki turns on his heel and leaves.  
  
It feels like fleeing.  
  
  
  
Loki is beginning to grow annoyed with Thor. He regrets ever commissioning the dwarves for that blasted hammer.  
  
But, he thinks, at least Thor has learned how to make it stop raining.  
  
Thor barrels through the sky beneath full sunlight. Loki thinks he will get a sunburn. He will be red as a cherry and smile for it all the same, the absolute buffoon.  
  
He sees Amora pass him in the library twice before he huffs, rising angrily to leave. The third time it happens, she grabs his wrist. An affront that, done by any other not currently fucking the crown prince, would result in the loss of that hand. Princess or not.  
  
Loki shrugs her off and sits back down.  
  
“What, cur.”  
  
Her green eyes go wide. Then sly.  
  
“You know I am Vanir.”  
  
“And?”  
  
She stays staring at him, eyes narrowing more by the second. As if she is trying to pass some knowledge telepathically between them. By the time she is nearly squinting he rolls his eyes and makes to stand.  
  
“Go to him if it bothers you so much,” she says before he leaves.  
  
Loki thinks he’d really rather not.  
  
  
  
He sees Amora turn Thor down in the training yard two months later. Thor’s face twists angry and then sad, too quick to pinpoint the start or the end of either. Finally, he stalks off toward the baths of the guardhouse, ripping off his bracers and flinging them as he goes.  
  
Loki watches their interaction unfold where he sits with his journal. Vanir runework. It’s been nagging him these last weeks. Amora spots him and makes her way over. Sits down right in the grass beside him, uncaring of the stains she’ll surely gather on her pale yellow silks.  
  
“Your brother is a brute.”  
  
“I could have told you that.”  
  
“He turns me around when we’re at it. I told him I didn’t like it. Then he couldn’t work up the nerve to do any other kind of way.”  
  
She sighs prettily, but Loki’s skin is crawling.  
  
“Stop. Please.”  
  
“That was weeks ago,” Amora tells him. “We’ve been taking tea in the garden instead ever since, but I’ve grown bored and have just let him know. He will be fine I think. In a few hours and after a bath and some cakes.”  
  
Loki closes his eyes, not wanting to picture it. Any of it. Not even the cakes.  
  
“At first I thought it was fun. Passionate. But then I grew to wonder if he could not look at my face. I noticed him slipping farther away when we slept beside one another, though that was rare and only allowed when I pushed for it. Once he rolled so far away from me he ended up face first on the floor, the fool.” She laughs, high and punctuated by snorts. “I think he must talk in his sleep. He worries quite a lot.”  
  
Loki can feel himself withering.  
  
Amora ignores him. “He is not unkind, do not mistake what I’m telling you. I simply believe your brother is a brute of a boy who cannot be honest with himself.”  
  
Loki groans. He feels the book in his hands dip and opens his eyes to see Amora’s fingers trailing lightly over the page he’d marked to near illegibility.  
  
“This is an old translation. I can send for the current one.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“It is a love story, you know,” she says. Her gaze lifts to his and she shrugs. “I tell you I’m Vanir and look at you, pouncing at the chance to understand what I meant.”  
  
“I know what you meant, girl.”  
  
She snorts again, not believing him, and Loki frowns.  
  
“Our rulers are kind, and fair, and unapologetic. I love them, and not only because they are my parents,” she says, the words slow and meaningful.  
  
“Freyja and Frey?”  
  
Twins.  
  
When he meets her eyes then, he realizes her smile has turned funny.  
  
“Oh,” Loki says, understanding. She does know then. “What will you demand of me?”  
  
She shakes her head. “Think you I’m foolish enough to risk my head by blackmailing a Prince of Asgard? I only want to go home is all.”  
  
“You’d break your betrothal with Thor?”  
  
Amora leans back until she is reclining beside him, elbows dug into the soft earth. She shrugs her elegant shoulders and squints up against the sun.  
  
“He doesn’t want me.” She says it so simply, a statement with no emotion. “You will help me. Go to him and see that he agrees to let me go. In return I will make sure my parents understand the breaking of the engagement was an amicable one.”  
  
Loki cannot comprehend what she is saying. He closes the book and lies back in the grass himself, shielding his eyes against the sun.  
  
“Vanaheim’s clouds are nicer than Asgard’s,” Amora says after a long while. Loki has only seen paintings, but right now he finds he agrees.  
  
  
  
A little known fact about Thor is that he was born in the heart of winter. He cannot stand extreme heat, as Asgard sometimes was wont to have. Many believed him to be a summer child, due to his golden hair and tan complexion, his ever cheery disposition. But Loki knows his brother often grows sad in the summer, for there is little to keep him busy and away from himself. And, Loki noticed, as the years went on he oft became sadder and sadder until one summer Loki had had quite enough of it and took it upon himself to take Thor adventuring to dispel his foul moods. And it worked, for the most part. Then it stopped working.  
  
So Loki came up with an idea. And Odin and Frigga had agreed, excited. Loki had gone to commission the dwarves of Nidavellir for a hammer. He’d given them the heart of a star in his favorite lockbox, a carved little chest Thor had given him years ago. The heart had shone so brilliantly when Loki lifted the top, lighting up the eyes of the dwarven brothers Sindri and Brokkr. And did they ever deliver.  
  
Mjolnir has lifted his brother’s spirits for months. But now his mood is wilting again. Loki can see it. And despite his trepidation, his fear, his resentment for the situation with Amora, he finds he still seeks to chase away his brother’s bad tempers. Wants to make him feel better.  
  
So Loki swallows down all doubts he might have mustered and slips out from his rooms late one night. He brings a freshly filled skin of wine, saved from Loki’s very trip to the forge. The dwarves had been kind to give him a barrel full of the stuff.  
  
He hesitates in front of Thor’s door. Worries he’ll walk in on Amora in the nude again. Realize that he’s been had.  
  
But then Loki reminds himself that Amora did make good on her promise for the recent translations, and they were much more useful he had to admit.  
  
Before Loki can even knock, the door is swinging open and Thor is walking right into him.  
  
“Oh,” Thor laughs, righting them with two hands on Loki’s shoulders. “Brother, I did not realize you were standing...How long have you been out here?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.  
  
“I—”  
  
Thor’s blue eyes slide to the wine skin. “I was just going to the kitchens to sneak some myself.” He reaches out and takes the thing, lifting it to read the dwarven script. “Nidavellir! You’ve been hiding this from me, brother.”  
  
Loki sends him a smile. “Forgive me that I didn’t think gifting you both a hammer and a whole barrel of dwarven wine at once was a smart idea.”  
  
Thor clasps the back of his neck and pulls Loki after him, swinging the door shut behind them. Loki feels his neck heat the longer Thor touches him, and he clears his throat once Thor lets him go.  
  
“You’ve been watching me,” Thor tells him, grabbing goblets. He slaps them down and unstoppers the skin. Wine sloshes as he pours messily between the two. “You’ve seen what she lets me do.” He means Mjolnir.  
  
Thor sounds so happy.  
  
“I noticed you’re not flying around so much,” Loki starts, cautious. “I was beginning to grow used to your buzzing around like a wasp. Always this red blur out of the corner of my eye when I’m trying to get work done.”  
  
“Then you should work in your study,” Thor says simply.  
  
Loki accepts the goblet that Thor holds out to him. He drinks in place of an answer. The wine is rich, and dark, and thick of all things. It trawls down the throat and he coughs. Soon Thor is joining him.  
  
“That’s going to take a while to get used to,” Thor wheezes out, wiping at his mouth.  
  
“It’s strong,” Loki comments, palming the back of Thor’s war chest. He grimaces and makes to sit at the edge of Thor’s bed. “Gods, it’s vile.”  
  
Thor makes a face, almost guilty. “It is, isn’t it?”  
  
“They said it was a delicacy!”  
  
“It’s mud, Loki.”  
  
Loki guffaws, exasperated. Thor starts laughing and soon it infects Loki, enveloping them both until Thor has joined him at the edge of the bed, giggling like children.  
  
Thor sighs happily and collapses back, scrubbing at his eyes. He folds his hands behind his head and when Loki turns he sees his brother is watching him, intent.  
  
“Thor.”  
  
“I miss you,” Thor says suddenly. “I miss confiding in you.”  
  
“I’ve not been away enough to miss.”  
  
Thor just keeps watching him. “It’s been different since Odin announced I was to be married. I’ve felt a space grow between us, and I don’t know why it’s happened. But brother, it’s all fallen apart. Amora has ended the engagement because I—I cannot.” He groans and rubs at his cheeks. Holds both hands over his face, hiding himself. “I’ve been wanting to tell you, but she is always around. And I cannot—I don’t ever know how to catch you alone. To talk. To just—”  
  
Thor cuts himself off and his elbows sag. He doesn’t uncover his face.  
  
“For some reason Amora has sought my company more often than not. I knew she ended it.”  
  
Thor’s hands fall away. Concern paints itself on his face.  
  
“Has she…with you?”  
  
“Must I force more delectable mud down your throat until it comes back up your nose, you idiot?” Loki snaps, just short of unkind. “No. Gods, no.”  
  
Thor only answers him with a slow grin. Loki doesn’t know what it means. “Does she harbor ill will? Will she call for a severance of peace?”  
  
“No,” Loki mutters. “She, uh. She’s rather alright, I think. She misses Vanaheim more than anything.”  
  
Thor breathes out and it sounds like the weight of an entire realm leaves with it.  
  
“Good,” he whispers, relieved.  
  
“She wishes to be free from her obligation in the engagement,” Loki continues. “She wishes for you to let her go.”  
  
Thor gives him a perplexed look. “Was she not always free? Surely she knew?”  
  
Loki nods, relief flooding through him. “I will tell her.”  
  
Thor smiles sadly. Then, “Will you stay tonight?”  
  
Loki fights not to make a fist in the furs beneath them.  
  
“Like when we were children?”  
  
“If a page walks in on us, we can chalk it up to too much wine.”  
  
The defense comes too quickly. Loki worries his lip between his teeth and sees Thor’s eyes dart to catch the movement. Loki feels his stomach flip.  
  
“I miss talking with you. About everything and nothing. Laughing with you,” Thor tells him gently, a confession.  
  
Thor’s fingers inch forward to find his, squeezing his index. Loki turns his hand to pinch lightly at Thor’s knuckles.  
  
“Alright.”  
  
  
  
Loki is as ever helpless to his brother’s charm as he always was and likely will continue to be for all time. It’s how he’s ended up in Jotunheim with not enough food in the dead of winter, huddled beneath Thor’s cloak because neither of them thought to bring furs for the trip. It is how Loki ended up pierced through the calf with the tooth of a baby bilgesnipe, because Thor and Fandral had crafted the clever idea to steal an egg and try to hatch it beneath a slumbering Volstagg’s bottom, all in the effort of a grand joke. It is how Loki was forced to fix Sif’s golden hair when he accidentally sheared her curls off during a seidr mishap in training, Thor’s giant, shining eyes pleading with him in the sweetest way to try and make amends.  
  
It is how he has ended up under the covers of Thor’s bed now, Thor’s hands clutching Loki’s to his bare chest. Loki’s heart races, tries to show nothing on his face as Thor prattles on about every moment of every day that Loki has not personally witnessed.  
  
Loki wonders when his brother became so clingy. He never used to think so before. Perhaps rarely, when particularly annoyed. But Thor launches into stories of the mundane with gusto now, hardly breaking to catch a breath. Loki ooh’s and mmhm’s when appropriate, absorbing it all, content to simply lie there and enjoy the gentle rumble of Thor’s voice.  
  
It is some time later when Loki blinks awake to vast darkness, the candles long burnt out. In the dark, he feels warm, and Thor pulls back from where their lips press so lightly together. Thor is watching him, shocked—that much Loki can tell, even in the dark. Shocked perhaps that Loki is staring back at him in much the same fashion.  
  
Loki realizes then, what Thor has done.  
  
“You kissed me,” Loki whispers, hands still bundled against Thor’s chest. He feels a weight at the base of his nape and realizes it’s Thor’s hand there, pushing and pulling.  
  
“No I didn’t,” Thor tries to deny, fruitless though it is. “It was not a kiss.”  
  
“Yes it was.”  
  
“No it wasn’t.”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Loki says with more force behind the word. Conviction. Because he was right.  
  
He’s right.  
  
“No—” Thor cries, broken, and starts to pull away. He’s scared. Loki’s seen his brother frightened enough times to know how rarely it happens.  
  
Loki grapples at Thor’s chest, his collar, his neck. Grabs hard enough to hurt, to hold Thor still. He just wants Thor to stay _still_ for once in his bloody life.  
  
“Thor.” It comes out a rasp. “Thor, come back. Come back to me.”  
  
He’s babbling. He doesn’t know what the words even mean, can’t know, can’t even begin to know. The only thing he knows he wants is for Thor to kiss him and keep kissing him and never stop. He thinks of Vanaheim. He thinks of Thor so sad and lonesome, no matter what Loki seemed to do, no matter how close he was. It had just never been close enough. Too much and not enough, the both of them pining for the same thing, and never knowing. Knows in his bones now it’ll be different.  
  
The fingers at his nape tighten in his hair, pulls him closer. Close enough Loki can taste the ugly wine on Thor’s breath. Can feel the breath leave his brother’s body and enter his own, wants to feel more. So much more.  
  
“I am drunk,” Thor says then, a pitiful excuse. “I am drunk and know not what I was doing.”  
  
“You’re not drunk, Thor. We’re not drunk.” Loki dares to slide his hands up to cradle Thor’s jaw and he feels lightheaded when Thor turns into the touch, nuzzling his palm.  
  
“You do not,” Thor says, throat working. “You do not hate me? For this perversion? I have tried, for so long to say it is not real. To pretend it is not there. But it’s your face I see, all the time, whenever I—”  
  
Thor threads both hands through Loki’s hair, makes him feel like Thor will pick him up and carry him away. Pick him up and keep him close, always, held so secure.  
  
“I have _missed_ you, brother,” Thor pleads.  
  
And so Loki surges forth to kiss his brother.  
  
Because he can impart assurances later, after. Thor rolls onto his back and gasps and whimpers into Loki’s mouth, and Loki feels those thick, hammer wielding arms grasp him tight.  
  
“No, Thor,” Loki murmurs between bites and sucks and soft little back-of-the-throat groans, marvels that he is the one drawing them out from his thundering brother. “No, I do not hate you.”  
  
Thor weeps, and laughs, and holds him tighter.  
  
“Quite the opposite, really.”


End file.
